Breathe In Breathe Out
by LaVieEnRose113
Summary: Contains SPOILERS for episode 11x21. Meredith faces the aftermath. One-Shot.


**A/N: SPOILERS: This contains SPOILERS for the latest episode of Grey's Anatomy "How To Save a Life". I needed to write out my feelings, and this is the result. WARNING: This is really sad, and there are no happy moments. It takes place just after Derek is removed from the machines. **

**Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters. Unfortunately. **

Breathe In Breathe Out

Meredith Grey felt numb, her limbs heavy. The machine breathing for her husband stopped, and his chest beneath her hand stopped rising and falling with life.

The monitor began sounding the alarm of the flat line. Then, the sound of blessed silence when the nurse shut off the damned machine.

She quietly left her alone with her dead husband, and Meredith felt uncomfortable. She crossed her arms over her chest as she began to think about all of the arrangements that she would need to make. She needed to tell everyone, she needed to tell her kids…Zola, she might understand…

Suddenly, she couldn't take it anymore. All she wanted was Derek's arms around her, and quietly teasing her for taking so long to get here and the faint smell of vomit she was sure to have lingering on her person. But she wouldn't get that. Not anymore. He was gone.

She couldn't blame him though. The doctors here hadn't been trained properly, and they didn't save him, though they could have. And now, she had told him to go, that they would be okay.

Suddenly, it occurred to her that she shouldn't have said that last part. She didn't know that she would be okay. In fact, she felt broken; like she had been shattered into pieces long ago and with each loss she was losing another piece of herself. This loss had been just as big as Cristina's, another jagged shard of her self being pulled out of her soul until she felt splintered and fragile.

He looked as if he was sleeping. Meredith slowly and gently took his hand in one of hers, and with the other she stroked his face again. He was gone, she knew, totally and completely gone, but she needed this. To reconcile his return to her life with his permanent and irreversible loss.

"We love you, Derek. I love you. Just, just rest, now, Derek. Rest, my husband." She said softly, watching him carefully.

Her rational, physician side demanded to know what she thought she was doing. He couldn't hear her, he was gone. But she knew all of this, and felt that this was right anyway.

Something pulled inside of her to leave, to get her kids and go to her home, her safe haven, but another part of her couldn't let go of Derek, couldn't let go of this, this last moment between them.

"Derek, I need you to know that I love you and that I will always love you. But I have to go. I have to take our kids and go home." Meredith slowly brought his hand to her lips and kissed it, then laid it on the bed.

Before she could think twice about her decision, she left, the room, the hospital, loaded her kids in the car and left it all behind her as she fled home, needing, wanting sleep.

She mechanically put her children to bed, but Zola, in particular, was fussy and was asking for her father. Meredith was unsure of what to say, so she gently coaxed her drowsy child to sleep.

Soon after the kids were down for the night, Meredith found herself standing at the door of her bedroom, having flashbacks of the last night she and Derek spent in their bed together. She would have to find that tumor now. Derek was no longer here to sleep beside. Not now, not ever.

She vaguely remembered that the hospital had given her what was left of Derek's personal effects- the bag was in the living room, but she had no desire to tend to that now, as she stood in the middle of her bedroom.

Meredith peeled off her clothes, feeling as though she were a doll whose movements someone was controlling. She clumsily tossed them into her hamper, and then something clicked for her.

She moved gingerly, as though she had been beaten, to Derek's hamper, and pulled out some of his dirty clothes, a pair of pajama pants and a t-shirt. She brought the soft material to her face, burying her nose in them. They still smelled so strongly of him.

Derek's wife, Zola and Bailey's mother collapsed to the floor in a heap, clutching the clothing desperately to her as she finally gave herself over to her grief fully.

Somehow, she had never imagined this. She had always told herself that divorce was a possibility, especially when they were going through their rough patches, but she had never imagined that he would _die. _That this was the way that he would leave her.

Something inside of her vaguely pointed out that Derek had died after doing what he had given so much of his life working for- saving lives.

What was that he used to say? She asked herself as she curled up into ball with the clothing tucked against her neck. It's a beautiful day to save lives.

Stay here. Don't move. Wait for me.

I will.

Sleep swallowed her whole.


End file.
